


Idolatry, or In Heart's Drumming I Heard Footsteps Thund'ring

by Dalektable



Series: Idolatry & the Hearth [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, F/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Themes, Stream of Consciousness, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 17:30:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12113682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalektable/pseuds/Dalektable
Summary: In which Cullen's stream of consciousness is unabashedly blasphemous, and he has adopted the Inquisitor as a goddess in his own bed.





	Idolatry, or In Heart's Drumming I Heard Footsteps Thund'ring

**Author's Note:**

> I've found that this is a spiritual sisterwork to Ravenous in the fact that it's very similar in tone, but this is meant to be a stream of consciousness piece of work to clear my mind from the longer piece I'm working on. I was suddenly very inspired and this happened. I've only read through it in its entirety once at this point, so my apologies for any odd turn of phrase you might find. Honestly, if you can even read this thing; it may be a dull slog.

Cullen has felt like a failure for much of his adult life. He has been failure of a templar first at Kinloch Hold, then as Knight-Captain in Kirkwall. And again, raised to the station of Commander of the Inquisition only to falter in his dependence on lyrium. A failure of an Andrastian as he forsakes her name for the name of a Dalish woman turned idol gasped and moaned. He has undone the Chantry's teachings with his sinful thoughts, unmarried as they are.

_They are sinners, who have given their love to false gods._

Ellana doesn't make him feel like a failure when they're together and he's running his hands reverently up her thighs, kneeling between her legs as she sits on the edge of his bed. His mouth waters at the memory of her taste, of all the promises and prayers he has spoken between her legs, worshipful. She commands him here like he commands the troops, and he has no second thoughts in obeying.

_Commander._ It's a strange title to give to a man who has done better taking commands than giving them. Always under someone; at Kinloch Hold, in Kirkwall. Now, the Inquisitor. She is above him as he bends to her will like in prayer, above him as she settles onto his mouth, above him as he lies back on the bed, grasping at the sheets for purchase.

_Ellana, Ellana,_ her name comes to his lips like a prayer when they're together. Once it had embarrassed him, now she basks in the praise like the goddess she is, and he feels no shame to worship her.

That which keeps him centered has changed from the Chant to the sound of his name escaping Ellana's mouth when his tongue is busy working at her, when she's grinding herself down against his hips, his mouth. He's never thought his name could sound so much like salvation.

_Cullen, Cullen._

_Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him._ Has he failed as a templar because he loves a mage? Or did he fail long before, when he doubted, when he left? Would he have fallen to her temptation were she locked in a circle?

Cullen cannot imaging meeting her earlier and not abandoning everything, Maker or Chantry, to be with her. She speaks and his soul resonates; she walks and he follows. It is a power over him that she holds, and one she doesn't abuse.

Ellana gives as much as she takes, a benevolent goddess who receives his offerings and blesses him in return: her lips around his cock, slick between her thighs, her legs wrapped around him to pull him deeper. Still, it is her love that has blessed him the most.

She blesses him when he wakes up at night, a hoarse cry souring his lips, and she is right there beside him to press sweet kisses into his hair and pull his curls away from his sweat-slick forehead. She blesses him when she brings him the dinner he's worked through, and with every letter she sends him from the field asking how he is, assuring him that she's alive and well.

Even missing her is a blessing, the way his chest feels hollow and too-tight, too-full. His worry for her safety cannot poison the joy that blooms in his belly when he sees her ride safely back through the gates. Seeing her home brings a smile to his face that Leliana and Josephine mercilessly tease him for.

It is a teasing he can handle, because he knows that later, even worn from her journey and all of the pitfalls of bureaucracy, she will make her way to his office to greet him. They rarely get much time alone, except in the dark of the night and the early hours of the morning, when no one has scheduled their every moment. He's never gotten much sleep anyway, so he doesn't mind if she keeps him up a little later, taking his loving offerings and returning them by stripping herself of her armor and baring all of her tanned skin for him to see, touch, taste.

If only he could record the noises she makes in his bed, turn it into a holy book. Instead, they are an esoteric mystery, and he writes passages of their scripture with his tongue on her skin.

He thinks there may sometimes be a difference between his worship of her and his lust for her, and he thinks there may be no difference at all. How he has been allowed to touch something so holy, how she could want him in return, he does not know. But she grasps at him like she doesn't want him to disappear, and he can see himself reflected in her eyes, and she gasps his name in his ear, _Cullen, Cullen, Cullen,_ like a lost verse of the chant.

He wants no one but her: forget Neria, forget Marian—he has always had something inside of him that turns flexible in the hands of capable women, bent his heart to long in their direction. And mages, always mages, like his life is a joke of contradictions, or a cruel setup for misery he has found the escape from.

They're both running from something, and when they lie together at night, sated and eyes heavy, she tells him stories of her clan. He tells her stories of Kirkwall, but never Kinloch. She's changed, she tells him, and she can't go back.

_But I don't know if I belonged there in the first place,_ she says one night, whispered so low against his chest he almost doesn't hear.

_Maybe you'll find somewhere to belong,_ he says into her hair, in as low a voice as her.

_Maybe I've already found it._

He doesn't ask whether she means the inquisition or him, but he imagines she means him, that she has made a home of him as much as he has made a home of her and pulls her close, kissing the top of her head.

_I love you_ , he says. She has a sadness in her eyes he wants to kiss away.

_There's a difference between love and worship,_ she tells him.

**Author's Note:**

> And somehow everything I write ends up sad. There's an idea, an overarching theme I tried to put in there, and I'm trying very hard not to point it out too obviously, because what would be the point of that? Comment, please, it makes my day to hear from people, whether you have praise or criticism.


End file.
